Titanic Harry Potter Style
by MiniPoe
Summary: It's the whole Titanic Harry Potter Style.
1. Going to your Execution

Titanic  
  
a adaptation from the movie by minipoe  
  
Cast:  
  
HERMIONE GRANGER... Rose DeWitt Bukater  
  
HARRY POTTER... Jack Dawson  
  
MINERVA MCGONAGAL... The Unsinkable Molly Brown  
  
DRACO MALFOY... Caledon Hockley  
  
On the pier horsedrawn vehicles, motorcars and lorries move slowly through the dense throng. The atmosphere is one of excitement and general giddiness. People embrace in tearful farewells, or wave and shout bon voyage wishes to friends and relatives on the decks above.  
  
A white RENAULT, leading a silver-gray DAIMLER-BENZ, pushes through the crowd leaving a wake in the press of people. Around the handsome cars people are streaming to board the ship, jostling with hustling seamen and stokers, porters, and barking WHITE STAR LINE officials.  
  
The Renault stops and the LIVERIED DRIVER scurries to open the door for a YOUNG WOMAN dressed in a stunning white and purple outfit, with an enormous feathered hat. She is 17 years old and beautiful, regal of bearing, with piercing eyes.  
  
"I don't see what all the fuss is about. It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania." Hermione says flatly.  
  
A personal valet opens the door on the other side of the car for Draco Malfoy, the 30 year old heir to the elder Hockley's fortune. 'Cal' is handsome, arrogant and rich beyond meaning.  
  
"You can be blase about some things, Hermione, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania, and far more luxurious. It has squash courts, a Parisian cafe... even Turkish baths." Cal turns and fives his hand to Rose's mother, Ruth Dewitt Granger, who descends from the touring car being him. Ruth is a 40ish society empress, from one of the most prominent Philadelphia families. She is a widow, and rules her household with iron will. "Your daughter is much too hard to impress, Ruth." He says politely.  
  
Gazing at the leviathan Ruth talks to Cal, "So this is the ship they say is unsinkable."  
  
"It is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship." Cal speaks with the pride of a host providing a special experience. This entire entourage of rich Americans is impeccably turned out, a quintessential example of the Edwardian upper class, complete with servants. Cal's valet, Spicer Lovejoy, is a tall and impassive, dour as an undertaker. Behind him emerge two maids, personal servants to Ruth and Rose. A White Star Line porter scurries toward them, harried by last minute loading.  
  
"Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way-" Cal nonchalantly hands the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilate. Five pounds was a monster tip in those days.  
  
"I put my faith in you, good sir." Cal saids simpily.  
  
"Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."  
  
Draco never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses.  
  
"These trunks here, and 12 more in the Daimler. We'll have all this lot up in the rooms." Lovejoy tells the porter  
  
The White Star man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who come running.  
  
Draco breezes on, leaving the minions to scramble. He quickly checks his pocket watch. "We'd better hurry. This way, ladies." He says to the women. He indicates the way toward the first class gangway. They move into the crowd. Trudy Bolt, Hermione's maid, hustles behind them, laden with bags of her mistress's most recent purchases... things too delicate for the baggage handlers.  
  
Draco leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers (mostly second class and steerage) and well-wishers. Most of the first class passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an elevated boarding bridge, twenty feet above.  
  
They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A health officer examines their heads one by one, checking scalp and eyelashes for lice.  
  
They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph "cinematograph" camera mounted on a tripod. NANIEL MARVIN (whose father founded the Biograph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. MARY MARVIN stands stiffly and smiles, self conscious.  
  
"Look up at the ship, darling, that's it. You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain. That's great." Daniel says to the bride.  
  
Mary Marvin, without an acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised.  
  
Draco is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And he is bumped again a second later by the boys' father.  
  
"Steady!!" Draco yells at them angrily.  
  
"Sorry squire!" The man yells back at him annoyed.  
  
The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.  
  
"Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath." Draco says annoyed.  
  
"Honestly, Draco, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family." Ruth politely says.  
  
"All part of my charm, Ruth. At any rate, it was my darling fiancee's beauty rituals which made us late." Draco says indicating it was Hermione's fault.  
  
"You told me to change." Hermione says irritabley.  
  
"I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It's bad luck." Draco says.  
  
"I felt like black." Hermione snapped.  
  
Draco guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with two tons of OXFORD MARMALADE, in wooden cases, for Titanic's Victualling Department.  
  
"Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites... and you act as if you're going to your execution." Draco said itritablly.  
  
Hermione looks up as the hull of Titanic looms over them...a great iron wall, Bible black and sever. Draco motions her forward, and she enters the gangway to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread. 


	2. Winning Titanic

A VIEW OF TITANIC from several blocks away, towering above the terminal buildings like the skyline of a city. The steamer's whistle echoes across Southampton.  
  
PULL BACK, revealing that we were looking through a window, and back further to show the smoky inside of a pub. It is crowded with dockworkers and ship;s crew.  
  
Just inside the window, a poker game is in progress. four men, in working class clothes, play a very serious hand.  
  
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, both about 20, exchange a glance as the other two players argue in Swedish. Jack is American, a lanky drifter with his hair a little long for the standards of the times. He is also unshaven, and his clothes are rumpled from sleeping in them. He is an artist, and has adopted the bohemian style of art scene in Paris. He is also very self-possessed and sure-footed for 20, having lived on his own since 15.  
  
The two swedes continue their sullen argument, in Swedish.  
  
"You stupid fishhead. I can't believe you bet our tickets." He says in swedish.  
  
"You lost our money. I'm just trying to get it back. Now shutup and take a card." The other man says, also in Swedish.  
  
"Hit me again, Sven." Harry says cockily.  
  
Harry takes the card and slips it into his hand.  
  
Ron is licking his lips nervously as he refuses a card.  
  
Ecu, the other sweden stacks in the middle of the table. Bills and coins from four countries. This has been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money are two 3RD class tickets for the Titanic.  
  
The Titanic's whistle blows again. Final warning.  
  
"The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change." Harry says.  
  
Ron puts his cards down. So do the Swedes. Jack holds his close.  
  
"Let's see... Fabrizio's got niente. Olaf, you've got squat. Sven, uh oh... two pair... mmm." Harry says nervously, he turns to his friend, "Sorry Ron."  
  
"What sorry? What you got? You lose my money?? Ma va fa'n culo testa di cazzo--" Ron screams, but Harry interrupts him.  
  
"Sorry, you're not gonna see your mama again for a long time..." He slaps a full house down on the table. Harry grins boyishly, "'Cause you're goin' to America!! Full house boys!"  
  
"Porca Madonna!! YEEAAAAA!!!" Ron screams happily. The table explodes into shouting in several languages. Jack rakes in the money and the tickets.  
  
"Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I'm high and you're dry and..." Harry says to the Swedes before turning to Ron, "we're going to--" Ron and Harry both yell loudly, "L'AMERICA!!!"  
  
Olaf balls up one huge farmer's fist. We think he's going to clobber Harry, but he swings round and punches Sven, who flops backward onto the floor and sits there, looking depressed. Olaf forgets about Harry and Ron, who are dancing around, and goes into a rapid harangue of his stupid cousin.  
  
Jack kisses the tickets, then jumps on Fabrizio's back and rides him around the pub. It's like they won the lottery.  
  
"Goin' home... to the land o' the free and the home of the real hot-dogs! On the TITANIC!! We're ridin' in high style now! We're practically goddamned royalty, ragazzo mio!!" Harry smiles broudly.  
  
" You see? Is my destinio!! Like I told you. I go to l'America!! To be a millionaire!!" Ron says to no one in particular "Capito?? I go to America!!"  
  
"No, mate. Titanic go to America. In five minutes." The pubkeeper replies to the boys, pointing at the clock.  
  
Harry and Ron grab all there stuff and grin as the walk "It's been grand." They run for the door.  
  
"'Course I'm sure if they knew it was you lot comin', they'd be pleased to wait!" the pubkeeper says to everyone.  
  
CUT TO:  
  
Harry and Ron, carrying everything they own in the world in the kit bags on their shoulders, sprint toward the pier. They tear through milling crowds next to the terminal. Shouts go up behind them as they jostle slow-moving gentlemen. They dodge piles of luggage, and weave through groups of people. They burst out onto the pier and Jack comes to a dead stop... staring at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long. The Titanic is monstrous.  
  
Ron runs back and grabs Harry, and they sprint toward the third class gangway aft, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as SIXTH OFFICER MOODY detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.  
  
"Wait!! We're passengers!" Harry is now flushed and panting, he waves the tickets.  
  
"Have you been through the inspection queue?"  
  
"Of course! Anyway, we don't have lice, we're Americans." Harry glances at Ron, "Both of us."  
  
"Right, come aboard." Moody says testy.  
  
Moody has QUARTERMASTER ROWE reattach the gangway. Harry and Ron come aboard. Moody glances at the tickets, then passes Harry and Ron through to Rowe. Rowe looks at the names on the tickets to enter them in the passenger list.  
  
"Gundersen. And...," reading Fabrizio's "Gundersen." He hands the tickets back, eyeing Ron's Mediterranean looks suspiciously.  
  
Harry grabs Ron's arm "Come on, Ron."  
  
Harry and Ron whoop with victory as they run down the white-painted corridero... grinning from ear to ear.  
  
"We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!" Harry says.  
  
The mooring lines, as big around as a man's arm, are dropped into the water. A cheer goes up on the pier as Ron tugs pull the Titanic away from the quay. Ron and Harry burst through a door onto the aft well deck. TRACKING WITH THEM as they run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. They get to the rail and Jack starts to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.  
  
"You know somebody?" Ron asks.  
  
"Of course not. That's not the point." Harry replys, he then turns back to the crowd, "Goodbye! Goodbye!! I'll miss you!"  
  
Grinning, Ron joins in, adding his voice to the swell of voices, feeling the exhilaration of the moment.  
  
"Goodbye! I will never forget you!!" Ron yells.  
  
The crowd of cheering well-wishers waves heartily as a black wall of metal moves past them. Impossibly tiny figues wave back from the ship's rails. Titanic gathers speed.  
  
The prow of Titanic FILLS FRAME behind the lead tug, which is dwarfed. The bow wave spreads before the mighty plow of the liner's hull as it moves down the River Test toward the English Channel.  
  
Harry and Ron walk down a narrow corridor with doors lining both sides like a college dorm. Total confusion as people argue over luggage in several languages, or wander in confusion in the labyrinth. They pass emigrants studying the signs over the doors, and looking up the words in phrase books.  
  
They find their berth. It is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks. Exposed pipes overhead. The other two guys are already there. OLAUS and BJORN GUNDERSEN.  
  
Harry throws his kit on one open bunk, while Ron takes the other.  
  
"Where is Sven?" Bjorn asks in Swedish. 


	3. Possession

By contrast, the so-called "Millionaire Suite" is in the Empire style, and comprises two bedrooms, a bath, WC, wardrobe room, and a large sitting room. In addition there is a private 50 foot promenade deck outside.  
  
A room service waiter pours champagne into a tulip glass of orange juice and hands the Bucks Fizz to Hermione. She is looking through her new paintings. There is a Monet of water lilies, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstract works. They are all unknown paintings... lost works.  
  
Draco is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines on trellises, talking through the doorway to Hermione in the sitting room.  
  
"Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money." Draco sneers.  
  
Hermione looks at a cubist portrait "You're wrong. They're fascinating. Like in a dream... there's truth without logic. What's his name again... ?" She reads off the canvas, "Picasso."  
  
Draco comes into the sitting room, "He'll never amount to a thing, trust me. At least they were cheap."  
  
A porter wheels Cal's private safe into the room on a handtruck.  
  
"Put that in the wardrobe." Draco says immediately.  
  
In the bedroom Hermione enters with the large Degas of the dancers. She sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Trudy is already in there, hanging up some of Hermione's clothes.  
  
"It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean... just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I'll be the first-" Trudy whispers.  
  
Cal appears in the doorway of the bedroom. Looking at Rose Draco sneers, "And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first."  
  
Trudy blushes at the innuendo "S'cuse me, Miss." She edges around Cal and makes a quick exit. Cal comes up behind Rose and puts his hands on her shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy. "The first and only. Forever."  
  
Rose's expression shows how bleak a prospect this is for her, now.  
  
Titanic stands silhouetted against a purple post-sunset sky. She is lit up like a floating palace, and her thousand portholes reflect in the calm harbor waters. The 150 foot tender Nomadic lies-to alongside, looking like a rowboat. The lights of a Cherbourg harbor complete the postcard image.  
  
Entering the first class reception room from the tender are a number of prominent passengers. A BROAD-SHOULDERED WOMAN in an enormous feathered hat comes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags.  
  
"Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny. Take 'em the rest of the way if you think you can manage." The lady says. 


	4. She's A Pistol

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Harry and Ron stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing so familiar from images of the wreck. Harrry leans over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.  
  
ON THE BRIDGE, CAPTAIN SMITH turns from the binnacle to FIRST OFFICER WILLIAM MURDOCH.  
  
"Take her to sea Mister Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs."  
  
Murdoch moves the engine telegraph lever to ALL AHEAD FULL.  
  
IN THE ENGINE ROOM the telegraph clangs and moves to "All Ahead Full".  
  
CHIEF ENGINEER BELL yells, "All ahead full!"  
  
On the catwalk THOMAS ANDREWS, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as the engineers and greasers scramble to adjust valves. Towering above them are the twin RECIPROCATING engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants.  
  
N THE BOILER ROOMS the STOKERS chant a song as they hurl coal into the roaring furnaces. The "black gang" are covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles working like part of the machinery as they toil in the hellish glow.  
  
UNDERWATER the enormous bronze screws chop through the water, hurling the steamer forward and churning up a vortex of foam that lingers for miles behind the juggernaut ship. Smoke pours from the funnels as--  
  
The riven water flares higher at the bow as the ship's speeds builds. Harry has the wind streaming through his hair and--  
  
Captain Smith steps out of the enclosed bridge onto the wing. He stands with his hands on the rail, looking every bit the storybook picture of a Captain... a great patriarch of the sea.  
  
FIRST OFFICER MURDOCH yells "Twenty one knots, sir!"  
  
"She's got a bone in her teeth now, eh, Mr. Murdoch." Smith says.  
  
Smith accepts a cup of tea from FIFTH OFFICER LOWE. He contentedly watches the white V of water hurled outward from the bows like an expression of his own personal power. They are invulnerable, towering over the sea.  
  
AT THE BOW Harry and Ron lean far over, looking down.  
  
In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appear, under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Jack watches the dolphins and grins. They breach, jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.  
  
Ron looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sunsparkles.  
  
"I can see the Statue of Liberty already." Ron says, grinning at Harry "Very small... of course."  
  
"She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history..." Ismay says, "...and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up." He indicates a handsome 39 year old Irish gentlemen to his right, THOMAS ANDREWS, of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders.  
  
WIDER, showing the group assembled for lunch the next day. Ismay seated with Draco, Hermione, Ruth, Minerva McGonagol, and Thomas Andrews in the Palm Court, a beautiful sunny spot enclosed by high arched windows.  
  
ANDREWS dislikes the attention "Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is." he slaps the table "...willed into solid reality."  
  
"Why're ships always bein' called "she"? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" Minerva says boldly and everyone laughs. Just another example of the men settin' the rules their way.  
  
The waiter arrives to take orders. Hermione lights a cigarette.  
  
"You know I don't like that, Hermione." Ruth tells her daughter.  
  
"She knows." Draco replies. Draco takes the cigarette from her and stubs it out.  
  
"We'll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce." Draco says to the waiter. Draco then turns to Hermione, after the waiter moves away. "You like lamb, don't you sweetpea?"  
  
Minerva is watching the dynamic between Hermione, Draco and Ruth. "So, you gonna cut her meat for her too there, Cal?" Minerva says boldly. She then turns to Ismay, "Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?"  
  
"Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury... and safety--"  
  
"Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay." Herrmione askes.  
  
Andrews chockes on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.  
  
"My God, Hermione, what's gotten into--" Hermione then inturupts her mother.  
  
"Excuse me." She says and walks off.  
  
RUTH is mortified. "I do apologize."  
  
"She's a pistol, Draco. You sure you can handle her?" Minerva asks.  
  
Draco, now tense but feigning unconcern "Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on." 


	5. Two Different Places

Harry sits on a bench in the sun. Titanic's wake spreads out behind him to the horizon. He has his knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketching pad, his only valuable possession. With conte crayon he draws rapidly, using sure strokes. An emigrant from Manchester named CARTMELL has his 3 year old daughter CORA standing on the lower rung of the rail. She is leaned back against his beer barrel of a stomach, watching the seagulls.  
  
THE SKETCH captures them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity of the moment. Harry is good. Really good. Ron looks over Harry's shoulder. He nods appreciatively.  
  
TOMMY RYAN, a scowling young Irish emigrant, watches as a crewmember comes by, walking three small dogs around the deck. One of them, a BLACK FRENCH BULLDOG, is among the ugliest creatures on the planet.  
  
"That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit." Tommy tells them.  
  
Harry looks up from his sketch. "That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things."  
  
"Like we could forget." Tommy laughes.  
  
Harry glances across the well deck. At the aft railing of B deck promenade stands Hermione, in a long yellow dress and white gloves.  
  
Harry is unable to take his eyes off of her. They are across from each other, about 60 feet apart, with the well deck like a valley between them. She on her promontory, he on his much lower one. She stares down at the water.  
  
He watches her unpin her elaborate hat and take it off. She looks at the frilly absurd thing, then tosses it over the rail. It sails far down to the water and is carried away, astern. A spot of yellow in the vast ocean. He is riveted by her. She looks like a figure in a romantic novel, sad and isolated.  
  
Ron taps Tommy and they both look at Harry gazing at Hermione. Ron and Tommy grin at each other.  
  
Hermione turns suddenly and looks right at Harry. He is caught staring, but he doesn't look away. She does, but then looks back. Their eyes meet across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.  
  
Harry sees a man (Draco) come up behind her and take her arm. She jerks her arm away. They argue in pantomime. She storms away, and he goes after her, disappearing along the A-deck promenade. Harry stares after her.  
  
"Forget it, boyo. You'd as like have angels fly out o' yer arse as get next to the likes o' her." Tommy tells him pratically. 


	6. Being Saved

Hermione sits, flanked by people in heated conversation. Draco and Ruth are laughing together, while on the other side LADY DUFF-GORDON is holding forth animatedly. We don't hear what they are saying. Rose is staring at her plate, barely listening to the inconsequential babble around her. Hermione has a tiny fork from her crab salad. She pokes the crab-fork into the skin of her arm, harder and harder until it draws blood. Annoyed of knowing what her life was going to be like forever.  
  
Hermione walks along the corridor. A steward coming the other way greets her, and she nods with a slight smile. She is perfectly composed.  
  
She enters the room. Stands in the middle, staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror. Just stands there, then--  
  
With a primal, anguished cry she claws at her throat, ripping off her pearl necklace, which explodes across the room. In a frenzy she tears at herself, her clothes, her hair... then attacks the room. She flings everything off the dresser and it flies clattering against the wall. She hurls a handmirror against the vanity, cracking it.  
  
Hermione then runs along the B deck promenade. She is dishevelled, her hair flying. She is crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But also angry, furious! Shaking with emotions she doesn't understand... hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple watch her pass. Shocked at the emotional display in public.  
  
Harry is kicked back on one of the benches gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead. Thinking artist thoughts and smoking a cigarette.  
  
Hearing something, he turns as Hermione runs up the stairs from the well deck. They are the only two on the stern deck, except for QUARTERMASTER ROWE, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk. She doesn't see Harry in the shadows, and runs right past him.  
  
Hermione runs across the deserted fantail. Her breath hitches in an occasional sob, which she suppresses. Hermione slams against the base of the stern flagpole and clings there, panting. She stares out at the black water.  
  
Then starts to climb over the railing. She has to hitch her long dress way up, and climbing is clumsy. Moving methodically she turns her body and gets her heels on the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out toward blackness. 60 feet below her, the massive propellers are churning the atlantin into white foam, and a ghostly wake trails off toward the horizon.  
  
Hermione, now standing like a figurehead in reverse. Below her are the huge letters of the name "TITANIC".  
  
She leans out, her arms straightening... looking down hypnotized, into the vortex below her. Her dress and hair are lifted by the wind of the ship's movement. The only sound, above the rush of water below, is the flutter and snap of the big Union Harry right above her.  
  
"Don't do it." He says firmly.  
  
She whips her head around at the sound of his voice. It takes a second for her eyes to focus.  
  
"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" Hermione yells at him.  
  
Harry sees the tear tracks on her cheeks in the faint glow from the stern running lights.  
  
"Take my hand. I'll pull you back in." He says softly.  
  
"No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I'll let go." Hermione says shakily.  
  
"No you won't." Harry says flatly.  
  
"What do you mean no I won't? Don't presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don't know me." Hermione continues.  
  
"You would have done it already. Now come on, take my hand."  
  
Hermione is confused now. She can't see him very well through the tears, so she wipes them with one hand, almost losing her balance.  
  
"You're distracting me. Go away." Hermione says annoyed.  
  
"I can't. I'm involved now. If you let go I have to jump in after you." Harry said with a smile.  
  
"Don't be absurd. You'll be killed." Hermione says, trying to talk him out of it.  
  
Harry takes off his jacket. "I'm a good swimmer." He says shrugging. He starts unlacing his left shoe.  
  
"The fall alone would kill you."  
  
"It would hurt. I'm not saying it wouldn't. To be honest I'm a lot more concerned about the water being so cold."  
  
She looks down. The reality factor of what she is doing is sinking in.  
  
"How cold?" She says quietly.  
  
Harry takes off his left shoe. "Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over." He says shrugs his shoulders and starts unlacing his right shoe. "Ever been to Wisconsin?"  
  
Hermione is perplexed. "No."  
  
"Well they have some of the coldest winters around, and I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once when I was a kid me and my father were ice-fishing out on Lake Wissota... ice-fishing's where you chop a hole in the---"  
  
"I know what ice fishing is!" Hermione says, now very annoyed.  
  
"Sorry. Just... you look like kind of an indoor girl. Anyway, I went through some thin ice and I'm tellin' ya, water that cold... like that right down there... it hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can't breath, you can't think... least not about anything but the pain." He takes off his other shoe. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't see a choice. I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here." Harry smiles at her.  
  
"You're crazy."  
  
"That's what everybody says. But with all due respect, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship." He slides one step closer, like moving up on a spooked horse.  
  
"Come on. You don't want to do this. Give me your hand." Harry says encouragly.  
  
Hermione stares at this madman for a long time. She looks at his eyes and they somehow suddenly seem to fill her universe.  
  
"Alright."  
  
She unfastens one hand from the rail and reaches it around toward him. He reaches out to take it, firmly.  
  
"I'm Harry Potter."  
  
Hermione smiles, her voice quavering, "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Potter."  
  
Hermione starts to turn. Now that she has decided to live, the height is terrifying. She is overcome by vertigo as she shifts her footing, turning to face the ship. As she starts to climb, her dress gets in the way, and one foot slips off the edge of the deck.  
  
She plunges, letting out a piercing SHRIEK. Harry, gripping her hand, is jerked toward the rail. Hermione barely grabs a lower rail with her free hand.  
  
QUARTERMASTER ROWE, up on the docking bridge hears the scream and heads for the ladder.  
  
"HELP! HELP!!" Hermione screams.  
  
" I've got you. I won't let go." Harry holds her hand with all his strength, bracing himself on the railing with his other hand. Rose tries to get some kind of foothold on the smooth hull. Hermione tries to lift her bodily over the railing. She can't get any footing in her dress and evening shoes, and she slips back. Hermione SCREAMS again.  
  
Harry, awkwardly clutching Hermione by whatever he can get a grip on as she flails, gets her over the railing. They fall together onto the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that Harry winds up slightly on top of her.  
  
Rowe slides down the ladder from the docking bridge like it's a fire drill and sprints across the fantail.  
  
"Here, what's all this?!" Rowe asks furiously.  
  
Rowe runs up and pulls Harry off of Hermione, revealing her dishevelled and sobbing on the deck. Her dress is torn, and the hem is pushing up above her knees, showing one ripped stocking. He looks at Harry, the shaggy steerage man with his jacket off, and the first class lady clearly in distress, and starts drawing conclusions. Two seamen chug across the deck to join them.  
  
Rowe yells to jack "Here you, stand back! Don't move an inch!" Then to the seamen "Fetch the Master at Arms." 


	7. I Know

A few minutes later. Harry is being detained by the burly MASTER AT ARMS, the closest thing to a cop on board. He is handcuffing Harry. Draco is right in front of Harry, and furious. He has obviously just rushed out here with Lovejoy and another man, and none of them have coats over their black tie evening dress. The other man is COLONEL ARCHIBALD GRACIE, a mustachioed blowhard who still has his brandy snifter. He offers it to Hermione, who is hunched over crying on a bench nearby, but she waves it away. Draco is more concerned with Harry. He grabs him by the lapels.  
  
"What made you think you could put your hands on my fiancee?! Look at me, you filth! What did you think you were doing?!" Draco yells.  
  
"Draco, stop! It was an accident." Hermione says trying to stop him from yelling.  
  
"An accident?!" Draco yells.  
  
"It was... stupid really. I was leaning over and I slipped."  
  
Hermione looks at Harry, getting eye contact.  
  
"I was leaning way over, to see the... ah... propellers. And I slipped and I would have gone overboard... and Mr. Potter here saved me and he almost went over himself."  
  
"You wanted to see the propellers?"  
  
GRACIE shakes his head "Women and machinery do not mix."  
  
To Harry the Master of Arms asks "Was that the way of it?"  
  
Hermione is begging him with her eyes not to say what really happened.  
  
"Uh huh. That was pretty much it." Harry says lamely.  
  
He looks at Hermione a moment longer. Now they have a secret together.  
  
Gracie beams "Well! The boy's a hero then. Good for you son, well done!" He turns to Draco, "So it's all's well and back to our brandy, eh?"  
  
Harry is uncuffed. Draco gets Hermione to her feet and moving.  
  
Draco rubs her arms, "Let's get you in. You're freezing."  
  
Draco is leaving without a second thought for Harry.  
  
GRACIE tells Draco in a hushed voice, "Ah... perhaps a little something for the boy?"  
  
"Oh, right. Mr. Lovejoy. A twenty should do it." Draco tells Mr. Lovejoy.  
  
"Is that the going rate for saving the woman you love?" Hermione snaps.  
  
"Hermione is displeased. Mmm... what to do?" Draco says, glaring at her without anyone but Harry and Hermione knowing.  
  
Draco turns back to Harry. He appraises him condescendingly... a steerage ruffian, unwashed and ill-mannered. "I know." Draco says quietly to himself, smirking. "Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, to regale our group with your heroic tale?" Draco sneers.  
  
Harry looks directly at Hermione, "Sure. Count me in." 


End file.
